Keynote Speaker

Dr Randy Swing, Executive Director, Association for Institutional Research,

Randy L. Swing is Executive Director of the Association for Institutional Research. Prior to joining the AIR staff in December 2007, Dr. Swing served as Co-Director and Senior Scholar for the Policy Center on the First Year of College located in Brevard, North Carolina. Funded by major grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Atlantic Philanthropies, and Lumina Foundation for Education; the Center focused on assisting colleges and universities, both 2-year and 4-year, in improving the learning and success of new college students.

Until 1999, Randy Swing worked for twenty years at Appalachian State University in an array of academic affairs positions from directing an Upward Bound project, leading academic advising, coordinating freshman seminars, to his final appointment in the Office of Institutional Research as the founding director of a campus-wide assessment initiative. His work contributed to Appalachian being named Time magazine's 2001 College of the Year for outstanding services to first-year students.

Dr. Swing has presented more than 250 workshops, conference sessions, and keynote addresses at national and international conferences on the first-year, institutional research, and higher education assessment. He edited two monographs on assessment, Proving and Improving: Strategies for Assessing the First College Year (I & II). Along with Policy Center colleagues, he is co-author of the 2005 Jossey-Bass book, Achieving and Sustaining Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College and has contributed chapters to other books and monographs. His research on first-year seminars has been widely disseminated through the First-Year Assessment Listserv and included in Assessment Update and About Campus. He serves on the editorial/review boards for the Journal of General Education, The Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, and the journal of Innovative Higher Education.

Additional appointments have included serving as a fellow at the National Resource Center on The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina, an honorary appointment as Visiting Associate Professor at Kansai University of International Studies in Japan, and as an international advisor to the Quality Assurance Agency of Scotland.

He holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Georgia. He also earned M.A. and Ed.S. degrees from Appalachian State University and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Swing began postsecondary education as a first-generation college student at Davidson County Community College in Lexington, North Carolina.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

12:30 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Workshop Registration

1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Foundations of Institutional Research: A Workshop for Newcomers to IR

in the Boardroom at the Embassy Suites at Vanderbilt

Pre-conference Workshop

Foundations of Institutional Research:
A Workshop for Newcomers to IR
This workshop is intended for those who are new to the field of institutional research. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the field of institutional research and to help new professionals to learn how to make a strong start in their development as institutional researchers. Workshop participants will develop an understanding of the role, function, responsibilities, and practices of professionals in institutional research. Participants also will learn how to develop competency and improved facility in essential skills of professionals engaged in institutional research. A resource guide and other materials will be distributed to participants.
Presenter-Glenn W. James
Director of Institutional Research
Tennessee Technological University

Presentations and Bios

Presenter- Takeshi Yanagiura, Research Director, Tennessee Higher Education Commission

"Student Engagement Prediction Model"

In an attempt to better understand which factors influence student engagement, this study introduces a predictive model of student engagement. Exploring unit-level survey data obtained from NSSE, I develop the statistical model which predicts benchmark score for each category. The equation employs Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to produce the outcome, incorporating student and institutional characteristics as independent variables. During the presentation, I will describe the statistical methodology, results of the analysis, and data mining techniques I employed to find the best model.

Presenter- Greg Shultz, Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment Tennessee Board of Regents
"TENNAIR Mentor Program"
The expectation of the TENNAIR mentor program is that experienced IR professionals will be matched with newcomers to the profession. The interaction between the mentor and mentee will be three to five schedule times during the year and other contact as required. The program provides a formal relationship between newcomers and experience professionals to help entrants transition into the Institutional Research profession.

Presenter-Louis Rocconi, M.S.
Ph.D. candidate Educational Psychology and Research, The University of Memphis
"A Path Analytic Approach to Faculty Salary Equity"
Maintaining an appropriate reward structure is an important issue faced by college administrators and institutional researchers. The present study employs causal path analytic procedures, an application of multiple regression, to investigate how background characteristics, discipline differences, and institutional characteristics' influences on faculty salary are manifested through mediating variables presumed to occur subsequent to the aforementioned control variables.

Presenter-Erin O'Hara, Research Director for Lottery Scholarship Analysis Tennessee Higher Education Commission
"Increasing HOPE? Early effects of the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship"

A critical analysis of the progress of the lottery scholarship program towards achieving these goals, with particular attention to the program's impact on increasing access for low-income students. In addition, the presenter will share results of a multivariate analysis examining factors predictive of scholarship retention, specifically student demographic and academic characteristics. Finally, the presenter will discuss the overall policy implications of the lottery scholarship on college access, need-based financial aid, and high school curricular reform in Tennessee.


Presenter-Gwen P. Aldridge, Ph.D. , Director of Assessment at Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis. Served asVice-President and President of the Mississippi Association for Institutional Research (MAIR), and as Secretary, President-Elect and Program Chair, and President for SouGood Practices in Defining,

"Assessing and Improving Student Outcomes"
The session will provide insight for administrators who have responsibility for assisting or training instructors in the effective assessment of student learning. Methods for writing specific relevant course outcomes using Bloom's taxonomy and other key sources will be discussed. A main focus of the session will be on exploring ways to assist faculty in creating clearly worded and timed assessments that add meaning to the learning process. Participants will also engage in a discussion on "closing the loop" in assessment of outcomes, that is, effectively using the results of the assessments.
theastern Association for Community College Research (SACCR).

Presenters-Chris Brewer
Director of Student Information Systems
Tennessee Higher Education Commission
Chris McDavid
Associate Director of Student Information Systems
Tennessee Higher Education Commission

"Early Effects of the TELS Program on Low-Income Access to Higher Education"

This study examines the college attendance and retention of graduates from the twenty Tennessee high schools with the highest percentage of free/reduced lunch students before and after the TELS (Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship).

Presenters- Patricia Mulkeen, Ph.D.
Director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness
Austin Peay State University

Gregory Schutz, Ph.D.
Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment
Tennessee Board of Regents

"Institutional Research: Getting Things Done"

The job of institutional research can be challenging. Many of us, formal and informal institutional researchers, are in institutional research because of this challenge. However, how can we meet this challenge in a relaxed manner? The challenge of any job is doing the right thing at the right time. David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity provides insight into getting things done at institutional research.
The purpose of this session is to provide institutional researchers with a tool for getting things done from an institutional researcher perspective. In this case, the tool is David Allen's book and program for getting things done. The flow of the session is an introduction, a presentation on David Allen's Getting Things Done, the nuts and bolts of his book, a practical look from a panel of experts, and a conclusion.

Collaborating With Members of the Cabinet
By Dr. Luther McKinney, Jr.
Maryville College
An effective Institutional Research Office must incorporate the support, expertise, and collaboration of each division or department in their institution. Collaboration is necessary and usually advantageous at work: to gain access to unfamiliar territory and the new resources that live in other people. Indeed, to get things done, learn, and improve, your colleagues - yes, even your boss - collaboration will come in handy from time to time.
Collaboration is more than just working together cooperatively ("teamwork"), more than going along (accommodating) or getting along ... it is that remarkable and unpredictable chaos, complexity and creative stuff that makes life interesting. Each of us must determine when it makes sense to collaborate? There are at least four situations where a collaborative approach is essential:

2007-2008 Officers
President-James Thomas
Freed-Hardeman University
Vice President-Luther McKinney
Maryville College
Secretary-Laura Brown
Motlow State Community College
Treasurer-Selena Grimes
Southeast Tennessee Community College
Past President-Jane McGuire
Volunteer State Community College
Program Committee
Laura Brown
Selena Grimes
Glenn James
Jane McGuire
Luther McKinney
Brian Scruggs